Deer's Ears and Beautiful Places
There
are places I love. I am thinking of a lovely little valley of green
grass and bracken fern and aspen and large old tall oaks with
scattered pine. At the right time of year a plant grows there that
is totally imposing. It makes me think of the jungle or the lush
northwest forest. It goes by two names Monument Plant or Deer's Ears. I used to think it was two different plants and perhaps it is.
It grows as tall as me or taller maybe 6 feet with whorls of big
green leaves which gives it its name. It starts out looking like
this:
Deer's
Ears
Later
in the season it puts up the huge stalk. It should have at the end of
the stock a large red or blue cluster of flowers. But it doesn't.
Look close at the stock and there are the flowers green in whorls at
the base of the leaves. Regular whorls as you follow up the stalk
and clustering toward the top.
Monument Plant
This
area I am thinking of south of Williams, AZ on the Kaibab National Forest lies at the head of a draw in the closest thing
to a “cove” you will find in the southwest pine forest. The cove
I refer to is a term used in the east for those moist, deep-soiled
sites that grow tall beautiful hardwoods like tulip poplar and
walnut. This is a different type of cove but shares the moist
deep-soiled character though in a relative way compared to other
sites in the southwest.
There
are other similar places that sit at the base of steep hills that mostly face north topped
by basalt rimrock. Bracken fern grows from the base of the rocks and
pines are tall and oaks are large and grass is lush and green in
spring and late summer. Sometimes
these are the places that grow aspen. But everything we see is
compared to everything else and these green places stand out from
their surrounding dry ridges above and dominating pine forest below
and all around. And when we enter there we know we are in a
different place than the average. Though I love the average, plain
old, pine forest of average grass and pine needles and pine trees
large and small on rocky rough soil of clay and silt.
I
love most to descend into these areas from a hot ridge of struggling
pines and even cactus. To enter the shade of a massive old oak and
wade through the high grass and maybe see a monument plant. But then
again there is something special early in the morning or later in the
afternoon when the shadows are long and the light is subdued and
maybe it rained and the air is thick and almost misty and it smells
like the wet summer pine forest which you must experience to know. It's then
that I like to enter these coves from below and ascend to the base of
the surrounding slopes on three sides of me at the head of this like
the apse of a cathedral. And like the apse would be appropriate for
altar and sanctuary to worship the creator. I should kneel and pray
here to Him who authored this beauty to draw us to heaven like the
worship and sacrifice of the altar. Drawing us up to heaven. Like
the trees who point the way upward to Him. Hints of paradise.
And I miss these places right now in winter but know the bare oaks
and pines heavy with snow must be buried right now so that we can see
the green and smell the lush and know the smell all the rest of the
time. But I am lonely, longing for it.
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